Strategy

I was looking at some of my favorite websites this evening and notice that Front Desk Tip dot com had a make over and thought it was worth sharing.

Frontdesktip.com was one of the first sites I wrote about for ECG. Front Desk Tip is the home for how to get room upgrades in Las Vegas. Does the trick work anywhere else? That’s debatable. I’ve heard yes and no. The “How To” section has been expanded since I last looked so take a look at the instructions if you need a starter.

I’ve never tried this for an upgrade because I am usually travelling on comps, but my next trip to Las Vegas will likely be paid for and I will certainly try this.

Which hotel has the best odds for a room upgrade? In order they are:

Palazzo

Mirage

Planet Hollywood

The good news is that these are all places that I would consider staying where I wouldn’t receive comps yet. I will likely be staying at the Palazzo on my next trip so I’m looking forward to the experiment.

Overall, I really like the new design of Front Desk Tip and found the site easy on the eyes and will probably visit more. I encourage you to take a whirl if you are planning a trip. Who doesn’t like a cheap upgrade in Las Vegas!?

The latest slot machine payouts from Gambling Teachers was released on July 13th. I missed June payouts, but it seems as if payouts are slightly less than the May reports. These payouts include all machines: video poker, keno and slots.

I only post the areas where I visit, but you can find the full report on gamblingteachers.com. The following are total machine payout %’s for all denominations.

I’m prepping for another trip to Atlantic City and noticed that the vpFREE2 databases haven’t been updated since my last trip so all pay tables remain the same. I was hunting on the message boards for any updates and found nothing. I did find a question that I’ve seen and been asked more than a few times and thought I’d answer for the first time on ECG.

Does the video poker machine continue shuffling after you hold your cards and before you hit draw?

The answer to this question is yes, after you hold your cards the remaining cards continue shuffling and your result continues to be truly random. So it does matter when you hit the draw button. So the hand you’re dealt changes every nano second you wait.

I’m a slightly superstitious type so if I’m dealt 4 cards to a royal flush I’ll kiss my fingers, ask a friend to hit draw, move a certain way, look a certain direction or wait and usually not get the card I want. What do you do?

After my trip to Las Vegas I realized that I played 3 card poker more than any other table game. This isn’t normal for me as I usually mix games up, but it’s how the trip went. I thought I would offer my strategy versus optimal stategy from Wizard of Odds. I don’t consider my strategy optimal or perfect because I haven’t done the math to prove whether or not it is optimal.

How Top Play

The game is simple. First the players bet on the Ante and/or Pair Plus areas. Using a deck of 52 cards 3 cards are then dealt, face down, to each player. After the cards are dealt the players may look at their cards. If the player likes their cards and wants to play they put another bet in the Play circle. After all of the players bet the dealer turns over their cards.

In order to win the dealer must “qualify” with at least a Queen. If the dealer qualifies they can then win if they have a better hand than the player. The player wins by having a better hand than the dealer. The amount of the win depends on the winning players cards.

So if you play your hand you are betting 3 units. If you fold your hand you lose 2 units.

Hand Ranking

3 Card Poker hands rank slightly different than regular poker. Here’s the order from best hand down.

Ante and Play pay the same oddsStraight: Even Monday
3 of a Kind: 4-1
Straight Flush: 5-1
All other hands: Even money

I usually try to gamble with optimal strategy. This is why I stick with Jacks or Better video poker. It has the most simple strategy. When it comes to 3 card poker optimal strategy goes out the door and I become passive aggressive.

Optimal Strategy

My number one reference, Wizard of Odds, says that you should play any hand equal to or better than Queen – Six – Four. “In any poker based game hands are scored first according to the highest card, then the second, and then the third, and so on if there are more. So a queen/7/3 would beat queen/6/4. The queens tie so the second highest cards are used to break the tie, and a 7 beats a 6. The third card does not matter in this case because the hand was resolved by the second card.”

ECG Strategy

I have two different strategies depending on how many people are at the table. The more players at a 3 card poker table the better the odds are for the player since more cards are in play before the dealer gets their cards.

If there is less than 5 of the 7 hands in play (I’ll sometimes play 2 hands at a time to get more cards in circulation) I typically only play hands Queen – Ten or better. The third card doesn’t matter. This is a little more conservative than optimal strategy.

If the table is playing 5 or more hands I will look at my cards after everyone else looks at their cards. If everyone else plays I will play 95% of the time. If this occurs sometimes I’ll just play blind. This is much more aggressive.

**UPDATE If there table has only 3 or 4 spots taken I’ll usually play two hands. The more cards on the players side of the table seems to increase the player hands while giving the dealer lesser hands. This isn’t statistically based, but it seems to often be the case.

Conclusion

I like 3 card poker when I don’t really want to pay attention to the game but want to gamble. As I’ve mentioned before I’m often a social gambler. When I want to hang with friends, drink, chit chat and people watch I tend to sit and play 3 card poker. Because of the big payouts there’s a reason for the excitement. A $5 game can turn into a $200+ win. I tend to play higher stakes, but the math is the same.

I have been on the hunt for the past few weeks to find infomation on Las Vegas blackjack payouts by casino. While that information has showed me some new resources that search has also led me to many dead ends.

It seems as if the Las Vegas blackjack community is loud, but not as organized as the video poker players I’ve met. So what have I learned from my search?

17’s: Almost every table in Las Vegas seems to be where the dealer hits on soft 17. This is to the advantage of the casino. All tables in Atlantic City have dealers hiting on soft 17, so I’m used to this.

Payouts: Blackjack pays both 6:5 and 3:2 in most casinos. It seems as if 6:5 is taking over and the game most easily available. 3:2 blackjack games are supposedly hidden.

Shoe vs. Single Deck: 6:5 blackjack increases the house advantage by 1.39% when playing with a shoe. House advantage with single deck goes from .2% to 1.6%.

Best reference found: BJ21.com. This was the best reference I was able to find. For more details on 6:5 odds take a look at this post.

Best community: The Las Vegas Trip Advisor forum had many willing voices. While the Atlantic City forum has more video poker advice, Las Vegas’ forum had more people that played a wider variety of games.

What did I learn? Not too much. I really learned the difference between 6:5 payouts vs. 3:2 payouts. I knew a little, but I feel much more well versed. As long as I keep my wits about me I should be able to find a 3:2 blackjack game. I’m not sure that will happen, but at least I know.

If you have any more references, please email me or comment below to share with everyone.

I’ve been looking at incoming searches to ECG and have noticed that every day there are people looking for full pay 9/6 Jacks or Better video poker for both Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

I’ve cleaned up information from vpFREE2. I realized how great the community is at vpFREE while doing research on Las Vegas blackjack payouts. If you are very into video poker I urge you to participate on the vpFREE forum.

This is a list of all casinos in Las Vegas with their full pay 9/6 Jacks or Better video poker machines if they have them. Each entry also includes type of game and denominations avalable. For details on all games head over to vpFREE2.

As I’ve mentioned before I find slot machine payout percentages very interesting. I used to look more in depth for information from local gaming commissions. Every time I looked I found the same thing. The higher the denomination, the higher the payout. With that being said, with a trip planned for Las Vegas I’m happy to see their slot machines are paying out a little better than the last time I checked.

These payouts include all machines: video poker, keno and slots. Total machine payout %’s for all denominations.

Atlantic City

Resorts 91.8 *

Borgata 91.7 *

Trump Taj Mahal 91.4 *

Connecticut

Foxwoods91.7

Mohegan Sun 91.4

Nevada

Boulder Strip 96.1

North Las Vegas 95.9 *

Balance of County 95.2

Reno 94.9 *

Mesquite 94.4 *

Downtown Las Vegas 93.6 *

Laughlin93.5 *

Lake Tahoe93.2 *

Las Vegas Strip93.1 *

* — Denotes change in casino rankings or areas since last reporting.

All information was taken from Gamblingteachers.com who take the time to gather and share this information. Again, I’ve only posted payout information for where I normally would gamble. For slot machine payout information from all parts of the country make sure you check out their site. It’s chock full of great information.

What does this mean for me? It means that I won’t shy away from playing slot machines in Las Vegas if I get the itch. If payouts last month trended lower I’d probably spend my low limit wandering playing video poker. It’s nice to see that Las Vegas payouts are much better than Atlantic City and Connecticut. It’s nice to see that until I head back to the east coast casinos.

Last month I began to examine video poker pay tables for casinos that I plan on enjoying on my next trip to Las Vegas. As I found out it seems any 9/6 Jacks or Better machines are $5 and above.

This time I explore the best paying games at those same casinos below $5 that are not 9/6 Jacks or Better. I’m editing all information to just show the best paying games below $5. When playing 9/6 Jacks or Better I usually play $1 machines.

While there is a good variety of video poker games the pay tables outside of the Palms are less than optimal.

While reading through this information and receiving tips from others I decided to brush up on my Double Double Bonus Poker strategy at Wizard of Odds this weekend. It’s a pretty volatile game, but it’s strategy is very similar to Jacks or Better which I’ve pretty much mastered.

I consider my video poker research complete. I’ll practice strategy a little more throughout the month. Next on the research list is Blackjack payouts.

Everyone tells me that there is no good video poker machines on the Las Vegas strip. My research shows me that there are indeed plenty of 9/6 Jacks or Better video poker machines. Where the problem arises for most video poker players is that the 9/6 JoB machines are mostly $5 and above.

If you’d like to see all payouts at all casinos please go to vpFREE2. They put together a great website of information. Since 9/6 JoB is out of the picture for heavy play while I’m at Caesars Palace (I’ll play some $5 machines) I’ll look for the next best games at these casinos. Stay tuned for more information.

Now that the NFL season and Super Bowl are over it’s time to move onto another sport for gambling amusement. Usually from the NBA All Star game through the summer I like to bet on the NBA a little.

Much like other sports I bet with trends, recent history and always keep home court in mind. I’m not great at math, so I don’t run statistical probability. Recently the folks at Wizard of Odds had an article on just that. I’ll share the highlights without the actual statistics.

Betting against the spread.

..if you must bet basketball blindly, your best bet is to bet on visiting underdogs, at a house advantage of 3.19%, when laying 110. 72% of the time the home team is favored, so there should be no shortage of opportunities to bet the other way.

This goes against traditional thought that the home team is always a good bet. I find this a little surprising, but for blind statistical advice I take this to heart. This makes statistical sense when looking at the numbers. I learned a little something here.

Over/Under bets

There is no significant difference between betting overs and unders in the NBA…The small difference between overs and unders is statistically negligible.

This makes 100% sense to me and is why I will usually stay away from over/under bets. I only bet over/under if there is a specific match up that trends one way or the other. I usually look at 5 recent home scores for the home team and 5 recent road scores for the road team. If both sides are 80% one direction I’ll usually place a wager.

The article has much much more, but I don’t buy points or play teasers. I do enjoy playing parlays and I recommend you check Wizard of Odds for statistical analysis. The information provided doesn’t really do anything for me.